


Adisa

by ShinMeiko



Series: Secondary characters have substance too [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Multi, i don't know how to tag, it doesn't matter because no one is going to find this story by accident
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:59:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22123723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinMeiko/pseuds/ShinMeiko
Summary: One year at a time, follow the story of Adisa Kone as he became the fearless, extravagant, handsome man who rescues teenagers from drunken baseball players.
Series: Secondary characters have substance too [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592485
Comments: 20
Kudos: 31





	1. 1988

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Life is a series of first times that I can't wait to share with you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18737509) by [ShinMeiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinMeiko/pseuds/ShinMeiko). 



> The first chapter is really short and the length of chapters is going to be dependant on how many important things happened to him that year.  
> The story is roughly narrated as if he were telling someone but I think I will need a few chapters to find that balance. This is obviously a different kind of project, I hope you'll like it!

I was fourteen the first time I realized that I was different from other boys in my class. We had this sexual health class one day, and the nurse was talking about urges boys can feel when being around pretty girls. A few boys snorted, some shared understanding looks, all seemed to know exactly what she was talking about. I didn’t.

It's not that I couldn’t see the appeal, girls are really pretty, and I also really wanted to discover sex and when I pictured it, I did picture a girl, but it also somehow didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like what I wanted. I was too confused to pinpoint why, though. The notion of ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual’ or, as I would be called many times later, ‘fag(got)’ was so far from my mind. I had heard the words, but I didn’t really know what they meant. So I couldn’t even have considered that this might be who or what I was.

It still bothered me. For quite a while, actually. And then I let it go. It wasn’t the first time I felt like my friends were in on something and I wasn’t. I’m sure every teenager had a similar feeling at some point.

  


In July that year, my friends and I went to see Die Hard went it came out. That’s when the dreams started. When all my friends wanted to be John McClane, I had fantasies of my own. They weren’t particularly sexual, and some might argue that it is an odd choice, but just like we do not choose who we love, we also do not choose who triggers our sexual awakening.

This brought me back to that sex-ed class. I was beginning to understand what the lady had been talking about. Although John McClane is nothing like a pretty girl. I was sure there was something wrong with me and I knew I couldn’t talk about it with my friends. They wouldn’t have understood. I don’t think I would have understood if any of them had told me something similar.

It wasn’t that long ago, and it wasn’t the worst of times, but it was still another time. There wasn’t really a mainstream cultural representation of gays. Not positive and/or accurate ones. I wasn’t living in a state like California or New York, where mindsets were shifting. No Stonewall or White Night riots in Georgia. Actually, homosexuality wouldn’t become legal for another ten years.

Not that I knew or understood any of that back then.

  


So I did something very stupid. Go ahead and judge me if you want, but I know that none of you was particularly wise at fourteen either. Especially in the middle of an identity crisis.

I opened my piggy bank – yes, I stayed a child inside for a long time. Deep down, I think and hope I still am. Life is too short to grow old – and took all the money I had saved. Twenty-seven dollars and whatever cents.

Then I went to the shadiest part of town, to a street my friends used as a joke a couple of times. Even today, I am amazed at how common knowledge it was amongst teenagers. Yet there I was, after sundown, in a place known for its sex workers.

This is where I met Michelle. I picked her at random, not knowing how important she would become in my life. She is dead now. It wasn’t the best of times to have sex leisurely, let alone professionally. But, again, not the subject.

When I approached her, with my shaky, cracking voice, trying to hire her for an hour, she had an amused smile and a tired look. “Honey, you’re just a baby. Keep your money and go home. Find a nice girl. Buy her flower and take her to the movies. You’re cute. That will happen soon enough.”

I tried to explain to her that I _needed_ it to happen _now_. That I needed to get _it_ , whatever _it_ was. Something happened in her eyes. She was the first person in the world, even before me, to figure out what was happening with me.

She took me somewhere quiet. Not to have sex. Just to talk. First, she just talked to me about sex and how beautiful it could be. How the first time should be meaningful and with someone we love. At least someone we are deeply attracted to. That it shouldn’t be done randomly with a stranger – especially not one we pay – just to get it over with.

Then she told me other things that I can’t remember. I just know that she was trying to explain to me what was happening with me without actually saying it. I have heard once that prostitutes are the best therapists. I think there is some truth in that. And I think that what she said that night, and how she said it, made it through to me at some level.

But I wasn’t ready to understand. I was even further from accepting it.

She didn’t push. She knew it would all come to me in good time. Also, it wasn’t really her problem. She couldn’t care for all the people who come to see her and who have personal problems. I am already lucky that she took the time to mind a little.

  


I left trying to convince myself that I was disappointed when, really, I was relieved.

I did not want to have sex with a prostitute. I didn’t want to have sex with a woman. Actually, I didn’t want to have sex at all. I felt so lucky that I found someone who would turn me down and talk to me instead. Although… I was fourteen at the time. Another woman would probably have turned me down too, even though she might not have talked to me.

  


I spent the rest of the year trying to ignore the thoughts that popped into my head regularly and that I couldn’t understand. I kept my Jogn McClane obsession to myself and I created this other one hundred percent alpha male personality for my friends and family. I was probably the only one who thought I looked tough, but it gave me confidence.

And it worked, to some extent. I know that my friends and family never suspected anything about my sexuality. It probably helped that I spent so much time mimicking my devoted father, my womanizer brother, my sporty friends and their delinquent brothers. Actually, only one of my friends had a brother that was a bad boy. The friend’s name is irrelevant. I can’t even remember him. The brother’s name was Steve. And we’ll talk about Steve again.

  


But yeah. That’s it. 1988. The year I knew I was different but I wouldn’t understand why. The year that forever set John McClane as the perfect man although no one understood that obsession ever. The year I learned how to lie to myself. I did that very well. Not that it would last. Just a few more months and I wouldn’t be able to hide behind those lies anymore.

Not that I need to tell you much about it. You know 1989 is the year everything went south… It started so well, though…

  


  



	2. 1989

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have tried to keep the same idea from that first chapter (you know, the one from a lifetime ago) and have the chapter told as if Adisa was just telling a friend his life story.
> 
> Just picture it. It's late, you just asked him to carry on and tell you about 1989, it's late, you both have a drink (coffee or something stronger, your choice) to get you talking through the night, and his deep rich voice is telling you that story.
> 
> Doesn't that sound nice?
> 
> And then he'll take care of all your problems, that's promised ;)

Back then, I was still the perfect student. Sure, I had friends, and I spent a lot of time outside, but it was during the day. I was always home at a reasonable hour and I spent my evenings doing homework and learning lessons.

I think it's that year that I had this English teacher who was convinced that memorizing poems was more important than studying them. I spent so many rights learning poems I didn't understand off by heart. Poetry wasn't much my thing then.

There is one I particularly remember. Don't get me wrong, I still remember fragments of most and there are those I got back to later in life, but there is one that stuck with me then, as if I knew I would understand its true meaning on my own someday.

It's by Robert Frost.

_Some the world will end in fire,  
Some_ _say in ice  
From what I've tasted of desire  
I hold with those who favor fire.  
But if it had to perish twice,  
I think I know enough of hate  
To say that for destruction ice  
Is also great  
And would suffice._

Tell me, my friend, isn’t there some truth in that? Pretty fitting to my life, don’t you think? Although, sure, if we have to summarize it through a few of Frost’s lines, it should be:

 _Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—_  
I took the one less traveled by,  
And that has made all the difference.

No? Don’t you think? Right. Not the topic. Let’s keep talking about the delightful events of nineteen ninety-nine…

We both know how crazy that year had been. I was flying and I ended up crashing. That's the story you want to hear

Fine. Let’s go there.

When was fifteen, I had fantastic friends, or so I thought, I had a family proud of my academic achievements I was pretty good looking and knew that the girls were interested even if deep down, I knew I wasn't interested back…

Sure, I had my teenage problems that were insignificant but which, back then, felt like the end of the world. But all things considered, I had a good life, I was happy, and I was aware of it.

But then something happened that, for most teenagers, is the best thing that could happen. It should be the best experience for everyone.

And for a little while, it was.

When I was fifteen years old, I developed my first crush.

His name was Zach. He was new to the school, he had sun-kissed skin and ocean eyes, he liked H. G. Wells novels, played the bass in a rock band but listened to rap, wanted to become an astronaut, always shared his Pringles with me at lunch, and to this day, I still have no idea if he was gay or not.

It is going to sound crazy, as much if not more as the first I made that decision, but as I got more and more aware of my crush, I took all my ridiculous savings again and went back to the prostitutes. More specifically, I went back to Michelle.

I had no interest in sex that time, I just wanted to talk to her, but I also wanted to compensate her for her time.

She laughed at me. It wasn’t mean. If anything, it was a little patronizing. She told me to keep my money and she invited me for a drink. That was my first ever cup of coffee.

She didn’t seem surprised that I came back. And today, looking back, I know exactly why I was driven to back. She was the one who spotted that there was something different about me and I thought she might be able to help me understand what was happening. Why I was daydreaming about another boy the way I was supposed to fantasize about girls.

Not that I would have been able to put words on any of that back then.

It was a revelation when she told me that I was in love with Zach. I think that ‘love’ was too strong of a word to describe how I felt about him, but it was definitely what I needed to hear. To stop hiding from it.

I asked her so many questions about it. I wanted to know if she had ever heard about anyone me or met one, if I was going to be like this forever, what I could do to change…

I didn't like most of her answers.

She was really nice About all of it. But she also made me understand that this part of me should remain private, secret, and that there would be safe places for me to be myself but that those places wouldn't be school, church, friends, or even family.

As you know, I should have listened to that part better.

Although even if I had ... Would that have made any difference?

Like every teenager, I thought that I was so subtle when I truly wasn't. I can see it now. The way I kept talking about Zach. Praising his every move, ready to worship the air he breathed…

I don't think I did that in front of our friends, but I think Zach knew. It probably made him uncomfortable. Not that he had to deal with it for very long. My dad figured it out too.

As you probably have heard, he tried to beat it out of me.

The smart thing would have been to lie, then. Hide what I was because survival is more important than the truth, sometimes. But I was as pure as I was an idiot, and I didn't know how to hide it. I didn't even know what to hide. Of course, I stopped talking about Zach, but it wasn't enough. My dad could still see.

So my dad kept beating me.

Even now, over thirty years later, I have one certainty: if things had carried on like that, my father, on purpose or not, would have ended up killing me.

Two things saved my life. The most immediate one was social services taking me away.

I never knew who made the call – a teacher, a friend, a neighbor ... I didn't care back then, but I now wish I could talk to that person, thank them, let them know about the life they allowed me to live. Because, despite all the dark times, it has been a life worth living

Anyway, I was placed in foster care. It was closer to a group home than a loving new family, but no one was beating me up. One of my ribs never healed properly but, other than that, I could take time to get healthy again.

Plus the move required me to change school and although it meant that I drifted away from my friends, it was good for me to be taken away from my ridiculous first crush. (Not that the second would prove much better when I’d get to that.)

A couple of weeks after I joined the foster home, Steve was placed there too. You know? We mentioned him before. He was a friend's older brother.

Unlike me, he wasn't taken from his home but kicked out. That was unsurprising: he was always involved in fights, was dealing drugs, taking them too, didn't to school too often…

Steve had many flaws. Probably more than one can count. And it would impact his life pretty heavily. He probably needed someone to take an interest, show him the way, and make things different for him. I wasn't that person back then and, sadly, neither were our foster parents.

Despite the dark future ahead of him, Steve is the second thing that saved my life.

He heard a bit about my story at home and he developed a protective side toward me. Probably because I was a friend of his younger brother. Still. He told me that I needed to get to a place where no one could do that to me ever again

He taught me boxing. Well ... he taught me how to fight. I wouldn't learn the rules and discipline of boxing for a few more years, and not from Steve.

We would go to a vacant lot a few blocks away and he would show me how to dodge, how to hit, how to take a blow, how to anticipate, how to disregard the pain, how to fake the confidence that can avoid you a fight in the first place until I could grow that confidence for real…

He was ridiculously rough about it and, some days, was it felt like being beaten up again. But, this time, I got to hit back. I got to say stop. I got to not be afraid. I got to let out some anger.

It probably wasn't the healthiest way to handle things but in its twisted way, it turned me from a victim to a survivor to fighter.

In some ways, Steve turned me into the man I would become

Plus, it meant that the other foster kids stayed away and it established me as an alpha. Or a beta. Steve was the alpha, really.

Steve who was about to start his own little gang and teach me so much about life…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yes, a real First Times chapter is coming, I swear. 😣


	3. 1990

If there is one thing we need to know and remember about Steve, it's that he was charismatic Everyone felt special when he gave them his undivided attention. And I was no exception. I loved being around him, sharing his light, showing off to him…

It wasn't just me though. As I told you, he very quickly ended up being the leader of a small gang, composed mainly of kids from various foster homes. I think I was his favorite, though.

I know. It sounds really vain. But it's not me just thinking I am fabulous. I didn't start being fabulous until ninety-ninety-six. Stop making that face. I have evidence.

The first one is that he gave me different jobs from the other boys. They sold drugs for him and I was doing bookkeeping. That was my time in crime for you. I was pretty good at it, too. Putting my academic dedication into something concrete for the first time was fascinating and the forbidden part was thrilling.

It links to my second proof. Steve, although he trusted me with his money, both on paper and physically, never let me anywhere near the drugs Not even the weed. Same as I knew he was using but he never did it in front of me.

Proof number three: he taught me how to fight but never brought me to one. Of course, I ended up joining in a few because that was life around Steve, but he never took me anywhere when he knew that would be the outcome.

And because I can tell from your face that you are still skeptical, and maybe a bit judgmental too, I am going to skip proof number four about how much nicer to me than anyone else in our home or our tiny wanna-be-cartel group to go straight to my fifth point. The one about him fucking me whenever we were home alone.

Oh. Someone looks interested now.

It all started one evening I don't really remember why, but Steve and I were the only ones at home. We were in the living room watching TV, not really paying attention, being silly instead. I don't remember the details, but I remember being desperate to show off to him. To feel like I was special and valued. To him, by him, for him

And in my sixteen-year-old mind, that meant showing him how tough I was.

So get ready for the most clichéd story ever. We were play fighting on the couch and, at some point, without any forewarning sign, we ended up kissing. Told you. Cliché.

I couldn't tell you who started it. Probably him since I wouldn't have been brave enough. It's definitely him who started taking clothes off though. And also that was my first kiss ever, I totally let him turn that into my first sexual experience. I just wanted to keep feeling special. Show him I was worth it.

I know how pathetic that sounds, but .... he was the first person to ever show me kindness and respect. Sure, my parents also did at some point, but that wasn't relevant anymore after the latest development. So if that one person who valued me wanted to express his affection that way, I wasn't about to say no.

And don't twist it into something it wasn't. He wasn’t just using me. He cared for me; even today I know this to be true. And I didn't force myself. I wanted this. I was sixteen and he was offering me sex. Of course, I wanted it.

That being said… It wasn't good. I had no idea what I was doing and neither did he. I don't think I was his first, maybe not even his first boy, but .... sex education wasn't what it is now. Especially regarding gay sex. And it was very taboo. Steve and I had sex more than once that year, but we never talked about it. Net once.

But back to that first time ... It was, dry. I had never heard of lube and, apparently, neither did Steve. And spit ... it's not the same. I mean it did the job, but… Yeah, it was dry, I didn't know how to communicate on what I liked, none of us had any clue about the prostate… And yet it was sex and I enjoyed it enough to later want to do it again.

But I also found it uncomfortable enough to feel the need to turn to the only person I knew could give me sex-ed.

Yes. I went back to Michelle.

You'd be surprised how much she knew about gay sex. Then again, I literally went to a professional. She told me all about lube, prostate… all the tricks she had to make sex enjoyable, which was the nerve of her job.

But she also told me about things that seem so obvious today, but I didn't even consider. Things about safety. Which was probably an even bigger nerve of her job.

I never thought of condoms as anything more than a contraceptive and it wasn't like Steve was going to get me pregnant. But she educated me about all those love diseases one can get. She was so serious about it. Looking back, I think she was already ill and that was one of the last motherly advice she could ever give.

She did the best she could. I wouldn't do better now. Still. Although we did start including lube to our fooling around, Steve and I did not start using condoms.

It would be a few more years before I’d realize that I was pretty much flipping a coin every time I was having unprotected sex.

Especially as, if Steve was my only lover then, I sure wasn't his. I most certainly was his only boy, but not his only sex partner. Not that he was more into me than any other boy in the world. I am very aware, and I already was back then, that it was an affair of convenience more than anything.

Oh, don't make that face. It's not like I was in any shape or form in love with him either. Yes, I had this weird fascination mixed with adoration for the guy, but even the sixteen-year-old me could tell the difference with love.

And love was still way down the line at that point.

Which also makes me realize that I made it sound like Steve and I were living a romance of some kind. Or at least a proper affair. We were not. Not only did none of our… connection ever transpired in any way in other aspects of our lives, it was also very short-lived.

A couple of months maybe. During which we might have had sex a dozen times at most. And we kissed few times, but it was always during sex. So… more than a relationship of any kind, it was more like we shared a hobby.

As for why it ended… Steve was sent to juvie.

I can't say it was a surprise. No one back then could have said that. It wasn't even for the drug dealing. It was for the constant fighting. One day, he took it too far and sent someone to the hospital. And that time, the was no omerta or ‘snitches get stitches’ vow of silence.

Three of the boys from the house were sent to juvie for that. But since Steve always kept me out of that side of things, I got away with my part in it, however small it was.

Although, looking back, my poor attempt at his bookkeeping was probably ridiculous enough not to be illegal or important enough to press charges against.

It was enough to scare me away from that lifestyle, though, or perhaps being away from Steve reminded me that I was actually a good boy at heart and that I enjoyed following the rules more than the thrill and easy money coming from being delinquent ... I don't know how far I would have followed Steve, but either way, I’m glad I didn't have to find out ... Part of me is afraid of how much of myself I was ready to lose for a boy I didn't even love. Part of me, on the other hand, is hoping that if I did walk away, it would have been out of integrity and pride rather than fear and cowardice.

Away from Steve, my focus shifted back toward school a little bit. I wasn’t a particularly smart kid, but I was a studious one.

I am very sad that Steve went to juvie and wasn't able to find someone to help him. I would like to change that about the past. But I also know that back then that person could not have been me and that staying around him would have cost me any chance of ever going to college

This is one of the most devastating truths of my life. Part of me achieving what I wanted could only be achieved by someone having their own future destroyed… I do know that the two aren't intrinsically linked, and that the consequences Steve had to face only resulted from his own choices, but after all this time, it still doesn't I feel entirely right. Especially as one of said choices was to keep me out of it and that, in the end, was I given the choice back then, I probably would have followed him in his… ‘adventures’ and ended up like him.

But no. Steve was out of the picture and I was left behind, having to find a new path for myself. Or go back to the one I had before, maybe. It felt a little alien, though. And tremendously lonely. Because, suddenly, I had no one. My parents had deserted me in the most abominable fashion, my sisters wouldn’t talk to me for another decade or so, my new ‘family’ was nice enough, none of that abuse in foster homes situation we sometimes hear about, but they had seen too many kids to still properly be interested in all of them individually, my new version of a mentor had been taken away, and my other friends were really Steve’s friends and we had nothing in common but our previous… ‘business’.

I was back to being invisible, and we both know I am not good at that. We both know it led me somewhere stupid…


	4. 1991

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, apparently I am in an Adida-side-story-frenzy.  
> Maybe because I am eager to turn him from this broken boy into the magnificent, magical man we all love ❤

When I was seventeen, at first, I was lonely. It wasn't unbearable, it wasn't crushing, but it was heavy. I think that if I had had a friend back then, I would have made better decisions. But I hadn't, and I didn't.

I was a sad, lost, lonely soul, ready to attach myself to the first person ready to show me any kind of affection. So, of course, that led me to another cliché.

Marc was nice to me. He listened, was interested, gave me valuable advice, made me discover and learn things I didn't have a clue about, he was funny, and he made love to me like I was precious.

Marc was also thirty years older than me, married, father of two, and everything I now despise in men my age, especially the ones spreading that image of our community.

But back then, smitten wouldn't even begin to describe how I felt. Getting the attention of an adult, even just between four and seven once to twice a week, was heading. I didn't see that there was something wrong about an older man seducing under aged boys. How I could I? I thought myself to be so grown up already. I also didn't care about his poor wife who was being lied to, and probably put at risk of various diseases, I didn't even see how weak it was of him to have picked the easy lifestyle and being able neither to stick to it, nor leave it. In my mind, he was a victim, trapped in an awful, forced, loveless marriage, and I was setting him free.

You asked me once why I was so forgiving of people making mistakes. There is your answer: I made them all myself. It would be years before I would get out of this spiral of bad decisions and not being able to cope with pain or loneliness. So, really, who am I to judge? It is far more productive to guide those who lost their way than point fingers.

Not that I am free of judgment myself. Some might argue that Marc was lost himself and that he probably just needed someone to help him accept who he was and, if came out was still too hard, find a way to discreetly join the community anyway. We both know that being out to the world is not the key to everything.

Even now, I don't have a problem with him being in the closet. My own dad was the proof that coming out, or simply seeming gay in my case, wasn't the safest option. I get the struggle. I know, now more than then, what he had to lose.

No, what troubles me now is that when you are his age, a teenager, however mature he might be, however grown up he might look, is just a child. And after everything that might be the one thing I don't understand, forgive, nor forget. Sexualizing children.

I mean, sure, I know that teenagers are having sex. Some long before seventeen. And that's fine. With other teenagers. Not with forty-something men who want to relive their youth through younger bodies and unhealthy fantasies. When you are nearly fifty, if you want some fresh meat, you can always pick boys in their twenties or thirties.

Obviously, I didn't have this view of things in ninety-one. That came later when you-know-what your happened. Or after meeting some real predators who left me no more patience for the lesser ones… But that’s all for later.

In ninety-one… I couldn't see that I was this lonely, broken, closeted boy with serious daddy issues, and that it was probably all that Mare saw in me.

No, I saw myself as this tough boy, who grew up faster than most because of his tragic backstory, and that it made me interesting enough to captivate not just boys but men, and that being with Marc granted me some sort of status that I couldn't have dreamt of before.

I met him at the library. Not that I was there because I was studying hard, I was reading fiction Adventure and science-fiction mostly, but a bit of everything. I used to read at the library rather than borrowing the books because I was sharing my room with two other boys and it was quieter there than at home. When I was captivated by story, I would borrow it so no one else could take it home, but still came back to the library to read it.

One evening, halfway through Treasure Island or Robinson Crusoe, this man sat at my table. He was tall, handsome, serious, muscular despite his age, had around his eyes the wrinkles of someone who laughs or smiles a lot… I noticed him and I think he noticed me.

But we didn't speak.

The following week, he was back. He sat with me again, read for an hour, and left.

And the following week.

It was month before he talked to me. In what should have been the biggest red flag ever, he asked about the book I was reading because he was thinking about getting it for his son.

I was reading I, Robot, Asimov’s famous collection of essays and short stories. Of course, the geek in me was extremely excited about this book and jumped at the opportunity to talk about it.

He seemed amused by my enthusiasm and we started talking. Just literature, that first time. But the following week, we started talking about our lives.

I couldn't for the life of me remember what I told him about myself or in which order he gave me in information about himself. But within three weeks, I knew more than I should have. I knew about his marriage, how he loved his wife but she didn’t seem to be enough, his children he felt like he would never understand, children who were just a few years younger than me, about his work he used to love and now liked less and less, about how every week, he had just three hours free of children, wife, work… and that it was new to him, so he wanted to make the most of it, learn how to be free of his responsibilities but so far had only been able to come here, happy to have the time to read for the first time in over a decade.

I continued going to the library nearly every day. Nearly, because once a week, I was helping Marc ‘make the most of his free time’. At first, we were going to museums, the theatre, the cinema, parks, even the arcades once…

Oh, how grown-up and special I felt, entertaining and being entertained by this educated, charming, older, established man. Like I somehow achieved something.

That is probably why it was so easy for him to lead me where he wanted. After a couple of months, I was still seeing him a few hours a week, but we rarely went anywhere anymore. From then on, we spent from this time in a hotel room, having sex.

I must give credit where credit is due. Marc was a much better lover than Steve ever was. He taught me lot about pleasure, and I had space and opportunities to explore, discover what I like and didn't like. He also always respected my boundaries. Which is why, in addition to other things, and however despicable of him it was to start this affair, I do not think it would be right to put me in the category of abused teens. In my mind back then, I was just taking what I wanted. I even thought of myself as the seducer I don't know if that last part is true. But even if it was consensual, it doesn't mean that it was fine for him to say yes.

It is really odd, actually. Having in me the memory, the very fond memory, of him built by teenage me, and the realization of who he really was constructed by an older me who has seen too many grown-ups take advantage of lost teens for a variety of things.

The truth is, perhaps Marc wasn't that bad. Perhaps the younger me saw him more clearly than I do now, memories altered by decades, and I can also honestly say that he never hurt me. Physically or mentally. Still. If I saw him again today, I think would have a lot of questions he wouldn't be comfortable answering. One being ‘do you still fuck boys before work and dinner with your family?’ I would also make damn sure that he never went for anything younger.

Although he is probably retired and maybe even dead by now…

I am not brave enough to look it up because I am terrified at the idea of seeing him and feeling tenderness first.

Because back then, oh Lord did I think that he hung the sun, the moon, and the stars.

I could one hundred percent have followed him anywhere. I could picture my life as being just that forever: nothing but this man's weekly lover, as long as it secured me place in his life, by his side, being able to keep feeling this way.

Because in spite of everything, regardless of how I feel about it now, he did offer me more than Steve. He was interested in my life, he talked to me about things was interested in, he was intellectually challenging, he was tender, he talked to me about pleasure and feelings (although… in that order), and he made me feel seen.

Of course, I thought that I was so madly in love, but it wasn't that. It was fascination and a need to be noticed, just like with Steve.

Which leads me to what happened when Steve got out of juvie.

He was put in some sort of halfway house, one where he would be watched and disciplined more rigorously than he had been in ours. Which, given the activities he was allowed to undertake there, might have been for the best.

It meant that although he was back in the neighborhood, Steve wasn't back in my life. We hadn't stayed in touch when he was away and there was no reason for us to start hanging out again. When I heard that he was back, he had already been there for weeks. But even then, I didn't try to see or contact him.

It had only been six months, but it felt like a lifetime, and we were not the same people. Or maybe we were, and we were only now realizing the real nature of our relationship now that we weren't in forced proximity This could so easily have been the end of my story with Steve. For us to never meet again.

But we did meet again. One afternoon, I was with Marc, and we were in the street, about to say goodbye, probably after the hotel but I couldn’t remember that part for sure. Anyhow, we bumped into Steve – figuratively – and although it was a little awkward, I was ready to do the socially acceptable thing and smile at him, politely catch up, even offer to see each other soon… something to acknowledge him in front of what sort of was his replacement.

But Steve was the first one to react. It took me by surprise because of the anger behind his every word. He called Marc words that shocked me then but that I agree with now. He had other harsh words to describe our relationship, hinting toward some sort of financial agreement, that even today don't sound true. And, finally, he started hitting Marc.

I knew how to fight. Actually, I knew Steve's way of fighting since he had been the one to teach me. I could easily have defended Marc. Maybe not win against my former lover, but… stop it or something. I did nothing. Not out of a sense of old loyalty but because I was completely petrified, unsure of what was happening in front of me.

It's a passerby who stopped it, and the whole thing was left to few punches rather than a proper beating. Steve literally ran away, which was the smart thing for him to do. He looked at me as he did, probably hoping that I would follow him. I didn't.

The incident could have been incredibly detrimental to Steve. He was just out of juvie for something similar, he was so close to eighteen, and it had clearly been playing with fire. But, of course, Marc didn't press charges. He couldn't. Even if he had managed to avoid the ‘why’ of it all, Steve wouldn't have and that would have meant losing his family.

It had the effect Steve had hoped for though: it scared Marc off. Probably not of affairs, at least not forever, but of being involved with me.

Classy as ever, he dumped me via a note that he left for me at the reception of our usual hotel when he didn't show for next “appointment”.

I was sad and heartbroken, like any seventeen-year-old being dumped, but I also felt extremely guilty. As if I had put his life and family in jeopardy, and that he was right to leave me this way. That he had no choice since my past had made things so complicated.

How ridiculous today to think that any consequences he might have faced would have been unfair, unjustified, and my doing.

But nearly thirty years ago, that's how I felt. And it made me so mad at Steve. I didn't understand why he did what he did. Was it jealousy? A claim on something he believed to be his? An energy surplus that he needed to channel? I didn't understand and I hated him for it.

It would be a few years until I realized that it had nothing to do with me and all to do with what adults were doing behind closed doors in that new halfway house of his.

Because however crappy my life would get, Steve would always have it worse.

And, unlike him, I was a year away from finally finding happiness…


	5. 1992

Nineteen-ninety-two needs to be separated in three sections. It was almost as if I lived three lives – and had been three different people – in that year.

One might say that it was the year that changed my life and put me on the rails to become who I am today.

I turned eighteen at the beginning of that year. As par agreement, I could Stay the home until I finished high school, so I did.

Marc, for everything that was wrong with him, hadn't distracted me from school as Steve did. He even encouraged me to focus on my studies, almost in a fatherly way, which is bit sick. For the obvious reason, but also that he would have been the only parental figure present and caring at some point in my life.

I graduated from high school and I suddenly had nothing left. I was losing my home, I hadn't made any plans for college… Perhaps Marc would have made me, probably even, but he was out of my life, and in this foster home that had seen too many children to care them individually and forever, they accepted my choice when I mentioned wanting to take a gap year.

But you only take a gap year when you have plans for the following year Or even the current one. Otherwise, it's just… unemployment, I guess.

So I put on the gown, graduated from school, packed my things at home, and closed the chapter on the first part of that year.

I didn't really have friends back then, so I was left to my own device. Or I would have been if it hadn't been for this one almost parental figure who happened to have taken a liking in me and who was ready to help me out in a time of need.

You might have guessed. Michelle took me in. She had an extra room and she let me stay there for a ridiculously low rent. Back then, I explained it to myself because she needed help around the flat – she couldn't cock to save her life for instance – and she was lonely. Now, I think that she knew she was dying and I was the closest to a child she would ever get.

She helped me find job and I started flipping burgers at this tiny place that was mostly visited by prostitutes, ‘poor workers', guys from the shady night club down the street, a few homeless guys… it was a shitty job, but I loved the people, which was good because I very soon wasn't able to afford losing my job anyway.

By September, Michelle was properly ill and ended up in the hospital. There was no treatment for AIDS back then, but even if there had been, she couldn't have afforded it. I started working double shifts so I could cover our full rent, buy things to make her last weeks comfortable, and I visited her every day in the hospital. It was tough, but I owed her. 

This was my first encounter with the disease, but…. oh, gosh, do you remember how it was back then? I literally watched her die. There is such a significant way they used to fade away, isn't there?

She died in November, after fighting like a champ.

Her friends and I tried to arrange a proper funeral for her, but with the little money we had to offer, we couldn’t find a funeral home that was willing to take care of her body.

The disease was still scary back then and there was a stigma around it. God's punishment for homosexuals, adulterers, and promiscuous women. In the mind. of most, she did it to herself and she had it coming.

The state ended up taking care of it. You don't get a proper burial in those cases. You end up in a mass grave with other poor souls who had no family or no money. It's for the best. She never coped well with loneliness…

That closed that year's second chapter pretty brutally.

I didn't want to stay in that apartment after she'd gone. I ended up living in the tiniest flat near the burger place. It was small, dark, damp, noisy, sometimes smelly, too high for a building without an elevator… No one should live like this. But it was the first place I could call mine and I loved it.

I also managed to keep it warm, clean, and to add plants, lamps, and decorations to make it homey.

I think I could have been happy there. If only I didn't do all those nonsensical things to make my life a mess.

I am not one to look for or use excuses. But I had a lot. For the last five years, my life had been a stream of getting close to some form of happiness or normalcy and then losing everything, usually very abruptly.

So, like most lost teenagers, I started to self-destruct.

The partying was extreme. Still, it could have I been manageable. I think I lost control when I started drinking at home, alone, during the day.

When it got not enough, I went to Steve for drugs. My former lover, who had tried so hard to shelter me from it once upon a time, became my supplier.

I tried it all. All but what needed to be injected. Michelle's death had at least done that: I finally heard what she was trying to tell me about the disease. I had one goal and one goal only: no matter what I would die of, it wouldn't be AIDS.

I might even had started to dig myself an early grave by other means on purpose.

In just two months, it got so bad that I had been fired for showing up to work inebriated more than once – even that place had standards - and I had spent my rent money on drugs more than once too, now facing imminent eviction. All my friends were party friends. so night butterflies only around when substances could be shared, and I was so close to becoming another tragic story. The ones you read or hear about, feel sad for a minute and then forget to focus on your own life. No one can feel sorry for all the souls who lost their ways.

Not even those who might try too.

Then came New Year's Eve.

That year’s epilogue. Or maybe that evening could actually be a chapter on its own.

I went to Steve for drugs but learnt that he had been arrested. For dealing, this time. He was eighteen, it wasn't his first crime, it was probably not looking good for him.

That, somehow, was my wake-up call. Instead of going to a party, I went to a park, sat on a bench, in the cold, and I thought about my life. Properly thought.

I felt disgusted by who I had become.

All because I hadn't been able to cry, or even process, the death of a woman that I didn’t see for who she was when she was alive.

She wasn't just a nice lady who took me in. Regardless of how she felt about me, she had been my mother more than the two official ones had had. She is the only one who unconditionally cared for my well-being. She might even have loved me to some extent.

And how did I repay that? By getting fired from the job she got me, being evicted from my flat when she had given me the opportunity to avoid homelessness, fall into a life of partying and oblivion when she had so clearly wished for me to have a healthier life than her…

I needed to make this right. Could I even make this right?

I was so depressed. Sitting on that bench, minutes to midnight, thinking that my life had only gotten worse and worse, that I was too weak for the life I wanted for myself, that I wanted to try but I didn’t even know how to do that or where to start…

I felt overwhelmed by it all. Which made me want to get high to forget. Which made me feel like there was no way out for me…

It was a terrible spiral. I think it would have ended in me finding someone to sell me drugs. They're not hard to find on festive nights. And after that, I would have made money the way I could with no diploma, no home, no skill, no sobriety… something soul crushing. Prostitution, maybe. I had a few offers at the diner. I refused them all, but they seemed tempting now. Or maybe I would have joined gang and. After all, my work for Steve had been spotless It would have been easier to get a recommendation from him than the diner manager. Or I could have become some other older man's boy toy.

I am not one to be defeated, but entering any of those lifestyles probably would have driven me to an untimely end. Overdose, illness, STI, suicide… you name it. Sinking deeper probably would have meant that I wouldn't have resurfaced.

But, as we know, this future wasn't meant to be.

“What happened to your smile?” I will always remember that sentence and the voice who said it.

I looked up, startled, fully expecting the voice not to be addressing me, but the boy in front of me was definitely looking at me.

He had gentle eyes, the cutest lopsided smile, cheeks red from the cold, hands buried in his coat pockets, a small halo of mist forming in front of his face whenever he breathed.

There was something in his tone that implied that he didn't say that just because I wasn't smiling but because he had seen me smile before. And yet, I had no idea who he was.

As I was forming a reply, we could hear a countdown in the distance. As we were getting closer to the new year, I was trying and failing to remember that person who clearly knew me.

I didn't remember him, but our paths had crossed before, although we never actually interacted.

I didn't know that yet, but this was Luke, and this moment was the clouds in my life lifting so I could enjoy the sunshine that he would bring.


End file.
